How can the FBI find most people so quickly? Many people think the federal agencies know everything. They don't and they don't need to most of the time: they ask for the information.
Does the FBI have a database?
It has a metadata one. The NSA's bulk telephony metadata program — narrowed by the USA FREEDOM Act in 2015 to per-selector queries — maps relationships, not sentences.[1] A map is powerful, but it rarely closes a case alone.
The cleartext — your emails, messages, photos, files — lives in apps like Google and Apple. The FBI just needs to ask for it.
So when you picture the government knowing everything about you, are you picturing a secret database — or the apps you already handed it all to?
References
- Lawfare — NSA Ends Bulk Collection of Telephony Metadata Under Section 215: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/nsa-ends-bulk-collection-telephony-metadata-under-section-215
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